Australia

A fair dinkum Labor hero

Can Mark Latham turn the political tide?

BEFORE he became leader of Australia's opposition Labor Party, most Australians knew Mark Latham for two things: his language and his fists. He once called John Howard, the prime minister, an “arse licker” over his strong support for George Bush and the Iraq war, and Mr Bush himself “the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory”. Then there was the time Mr Latham tackled a taxi driver and left him with a broken arm. But faced with an election by the end of 2004—and the prospect of Mr Howard winning a fourth term—Labor parliamentarians decided to ignore Mr Latham's colourful past and on December 2nd elected him to replace the lacklustre Simon Crean.

Mr Crean stood down after Labor powerbrokers, dismayed at his collapsing public-approval ratings, told him his time was up. Many had expected the party to replace him with Kim Beazley, his predecessor, a more popular figure despite having lost two elections to Mr Howard. In choosing the mercurial Mr Latham over Mr Beazley, Labor has signalled a break with its past and embarked on possibly the most daring, or dangerous, experiment in its recent history. At 42, and in parliament for less than a decade, Mr Latham is Labor's youngest leader in a century. Yet he also seems to be the party's best hope for overcoming the identity crisis that has plagued it since it lost power to Mr Howard's coalition almost eight years ago.

Under Mr Latham's two predecessors, Labor seemed paralysed in dealing with Mr Howard's political success, forged on the back of a robust economy and issues of national security and “border protection”. Ironically, Australia's strong economic growth during the Howard years has been built in part on the Labor government's deregulation policies in the 1980s.

Low inflation and a lengthy run of low interest rates have since then made Australians feel more prosperous than ever. But they have also produced a debt binge that has fuelled an overheated housing market. On December 3rd the central bank raised interest rates for the second consecutive month. Some analysts predict a third rise in early 2004. As he goes into an election year, this could cause problems for Mr Howard if financially squeezed mortgagees decide to turn on his government.

Many of them live in areas such as outer suburban Sydney and south-east Queensland, where the election will be won or lost. Mr Howard has captured these former Labor heartlands in the last two elections largely by appealing to voters' most conservative and populist instincts. Ditching the former Labor government's focus on reconciliation with aborigines, an Australian republic and closer ties with Asia, Mr Howard has concentrated instead on a tough stand against asylum seekers and making Australia's alliance with America the cornerstone of its foreign policy.

In the conservative Liberal Party, Mr Howard's authority appears paramount. He buried suggestions that he might stand down after he turned 64 last July and now seems determined to lead the party for the foreseeable future. In a new book, “What's Wrong with the Liberal Party?”, Greg Barns argues that under Mr Howard the party has radically changed the pattern of political loyalty in Australia by capturing voters in Labor territory and “keeping them chronically insecure about social and national change.” Mr Barns's own experience reflects an intolerance of dissent that Mr Howard has imposed on the party. He was dumped by the Liberals as a candidate in a state election in Tasmania last year after he had publicly criticised the Howard government's policy of incarcerating asylum seekers.

Can Mr Latham break the Howard government's grip on Australia's political landscape? The Sydney Morning Herald greeted Mr Latham's leadership as “the remaking of politics”. Gough Whitlam, a former Labor prime minister, has long marked out Mr Latham as a future prime minister. Few political ascensions have provoked such a buzz of expectation.

Mr Latham is a creature of the old Labor suburban heartland that Mr Howard has captured, and is unbeholden to either of Labor's old left or right factions, whose feuds have often shackled its policies. He is a champion of the market and individual enterprise and favours tax cuts for high earners. The job of government, he says, is “to help the people who are doing the right thing—the people who are getting stuck in, doing things the fair dinkum Australian way.” He will push his ideas to make Australia an “upwardly mobile society”, and boost health and education, where the Howard government is vulnerable.

His biggest challenge will be to unite his party behind him before the election, whose timing is up to Mr Howard. The government coalition will try to exploit Mr Latham's inexperience and his inconsistencies on economic policy. But the new Labor leader is as formidable a communicator as Mr Howard, and every bit as adept at responding quickly to circumstances. As for those foul-mouthed insults, he already says he's a changed man: “I love the Australian language, the larrikin [rowdy] Australian style. But no more crudity.”